


Salad Fixings

by horatiofrog



Category: 13 Reasons Why (TV)
Genre: Brothers, Clay tries to help, Family Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Justin likes cooking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-25
Updated: 2018-07-25
Packaged: 2019-06-16 07:29:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15432051
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/horatiofrog/pseuds/horatiofrog
Summary: Justin tries his hand at cooking dinner.  Clay tries to help.  The results?  Well...





	Salad Fixings

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [A Destiny Which Makes Us Brothers](https://archiveofourown.org/works/14782280) by [Bitterblue33](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bitterblue33/pseuds/Bitterblue33). 



> Warnings for this fic: strong language
> 
> This story dovetails with the short vignette "A Father Love, part 1" by Bitterblue33 from her "A Destiny Which Makes Us Brothers" series and assumes you've read about Justin's first attempt at making the Jensen family dinner, though it's not strictly required to enjoy this fic.

“What are you doing?”

“What does it look like?”

Clay took in the sight of Justin surrounded by cutlery, paper, pots, pans, and what looked like half a Whole Foods store sitting on the counters.  “You’re not…?”

Justin shrugged.  “Making dinner.”

Visions of Justin’s last attempt at making the family dinner raced through his head.  Clay casually walked over to the sink, trying to glance inside the paper bag next to him as inconspicuously as possible.  Thankfully, there didn’t seem to be a condiment in sight.  “Really.”

That goddamned smile of his.  Clay was fast learning how it worked on girls.  “Relax, Jensen.  I got a recipe this time.  Off one of those food shows.”

“Aha.”  The older boy poked his hand at a white paper-wrapped bundle.  “Do I have to guess, or…”

Again with the smile.  “Jesus, lighten the fuck up.”  There was no heat in the words.  “Chicken…something.”

“Wait… _what_?  You’re telling me you bought out Whole Foods and you haven’t even read the recipe?  Are you fucking out of your mind?”  Clay threw his arms up in exasperation.

“I dunno!  I was watching them make this thing with cheese and white wine…hey, did your dad get rid of that bottle of wine I saw in the rack the other...”

Steaming, Clay checked the remnants of the wine rack.   “No.  Last one, though.  I’m pretty sure they’re swearing off alcohol after it’s gone.”

“Fuck.  Better get this right, then.”  Justin turned back to his cutting board, carefully chopping the fresh chicken into cubes.

“That’s it.  What do I need to do?”  Clay rolled up his sleeves, prepared to do battle with the produce surrounding him.

“Nothing.”

“ _Nothing_ my ass, Justin.  I mean, I’m starving too.  And we’re out of turkey.”  The shamefaced look on Justin’s face had Clay backpedaling fast.  “But that’s okay, ‘cause I’m told it’s pretty hard to fuck up chicken.  Just…I mean, do I need to light the grill, or start the oven, or…”

Justin’s million-dollar smile returned.  Clay made a mental note to ask him how to make that work.  He was in this holding pattern with Sheri, and he so very much wanted it to go farther than ‘ _I kind of like you but where do we go from that, and how far?_ ’ Maybe having a brother could be useful after all.  “I got the oven started, but I’m thinking we could brown the chicken on the grill?”

Clay held up a box of penne pasta.  “And this is for…?”

“Yeah, I remember now.  The woman on the show, she boiled the noodles and then put them in to bake in some kind of red sauce.  I thought it looked like spaghetti sauce…at least, that what she said it was.”

“You _thought_?”  Clay was sure his voice went up an octave on the last syllable.

“Well, y’know, they never tell you what fucking _kind_ of whatever they’re using.  Red sauce…spaghetti sauce…same thing, right?”  Justin’s hands raised, taking the giant carving knife he was using with them.

“Careful!”

“Oh, shit.”  Down went the knife.  “Sorry.”

Clay sighed.  “I’ll get the grill started.  _You’ll_ have to cook it, though.  I never did get the hang of cooking on that thing.”

“Christ, Clay, it’s a grill.  Toss the meat on, let it cook.  When it’s white all the way through, take it off.  I mean, I at least know _that_ much.”

“Yeah?”

Justin looked a little sheepish.  “Sometimes…sometimes we’d do a thing, at Bryce’s.”  The way the name came out of the younger man’s mouth, Clay would have sworn his newly-aquired brother had been chewing on rat poison or napalm.  “I used to watch how they cooked on a grill.”  He shrugged.  “Thought it was cool, how it worked like that.”

_That_ explains why he’s doing so well when Dad teaches him, Clay thought.  “Y’know, I know they have like, some kind of home ec thing at school…maybe…maybe you might wanna consider it?”

Justin shook his head.  “Can’t.  I’m so far behind, what with last year and all.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah.”  Justin finished chopping and took out a grill mat – something Clay hadn’t known existed until that moment – and headed for the back yard.

Sighing, Clay turned his attention to the other things in the many paper bags around him.  It seemed Justin had, at least, _tried_ to pay attention this time to what was slightly edible and what was just…fucking awful.  He thought back to Justin’s face when Justin served them the one dish from his childhood he could remember how to make, and it hadn’t really fazed the guy that it wasn’t actually _food_ until Clay had said something. 

He was determined to help make this one better, for Justin’s sake.  And his family’s stomachs.

* * *

 

“Okay.  So.  We put the boiled noodles, the red sauce, a _touch_ of the wine, the chicken, and the spinach in the pan.”

“Check, check, yes, got it, and yup.”  Justin pushed the greased pan filled to the brim with edibles into the oven.  “Forty-five minutes later, it’s food.”

“We have bread?”  Clay casually pointed at a large loaf of French bread sticking out of a bag.

“Yeah.  That lady on TV, she cut it through the middle, brushed some kind of garlic thing on it, and tossed it on the grill.  After she wrapped it in tinfoil.”  Justin cast his eyes about, and Clay knew he was trying to remember where they kept the shiny roll of aluminum foil.  A small smile crossed the older boy’s face when Justin finally found it in a lower cabinet near the pots and pans.  “I bought garlic, but the kind in the jar.  I didn’t know if you guys had the press thing she used.”

“No, I don’t think so.  Dad’s not much for garlic, except on bread, really.”  Clay took out the bread knife and began slicing the large, crusty loaf through the middle.  He melted some butter in the microwave (Justin was awed when he found out _that_ was a thing) and took out the silicone brush.  “Here.  Have at it.”

“Well, how the fuck do I do this?”

Clay resisted the urge to connect the heel of his hand with his forehead.  “How do you think?”

“Dumbass.  I mean, do I mix the stuff together, or do I do it separate, or…?”

“How the fuck should I know?!”  Sometimes, the urge to slap some sense into Justin was a lot to hold in.  “You…you were the one who watched it being made!  What’d _they_ do?!”  Clay exhaled sharply, priding himself on not flipping the fuck out.  He really did _not_ need to be told for the thousandth time that A) he was uptight as hell and B) that he _seriously_ needed to get laid.

“I...I forgot?” Justin’s shoulders shrugged.

“This is seriously why you need a recipe.  An actual, honest-to-God, paper copy of a recipe.  Which, by the way, you said you had.”

“So, I lied.”

“Really?  D’you think so?”

The sound of the smoke alarm broke up the squabble.  “Shit, Clay!” Justin pulled the door of the oven open, and thick gray smoke poured out of the appliance.  He reached for the pan.

“Oven mitt, oven mitt!”

“Fuck!”  Hand now safely covered, Justin pulled out the charred remnants of what had been dinner.  “Shit!”

Clay burst into hysterics.

“Not funny, Clay!”

“No, it’s fucking hysterical.”  Clay’s index finger tapped on the temperature gauge.  “Forty-five minutes at what temperature?”

Another shrug of thin, bony shoulders.  “I dunno…three fifty?”

“You had it on five hundred.”

Justin’s eyes rolled.  “Fuck my life.”

“Well, look on the bright side.  We have garlic bread.  We have spinach.  We have what look like salad fixings left.”

Justin chuckled, though Clay was sure it was only half from humor.  “Yeah.  I wanted to go all out.”

“Lucky for us.  Come on,” the older boy said, clapping a hand affectionately on his new brother’s shoulder.  “I’m pretty sure we can’t fuck up salad and garlic bread.”

Sighing, Justin reached for the sliced bread.  “At least the grill works.”

* * *

 

“Hey, guys.”

“Hi, Mom.”

“Hi, Lainie.”

Lainie Jensen looked at her solemn-faced sons, both seeming for all the world as though it were about to end.  Her nose detected an odd smell.  “Boys, why does it smell like smoke in here?”

“Hey, sorry I’m late,” a voice called from the front hall.  Matt Jensen walked into his kitchen to find his wife perplexed about something and his teenage sons looking like they’d killed a man.  “What’s going on?”

“I’m not sure…” Lainie began.

“Um, I wanted to make dinner tonight,” Justin began.  “And I even got a recipe and everything…”

“You watched Food Network, Justin.”

“Same difference!”

“Okay, okay,” Matt said, raising his hands in his comfortable role of peacekeeper.  “So…”

“Well, we were doing okay, Dad, until the dinner burned.”  Clay’s hands flapped a little against themselves, a sure sign he was fighting nervous agitation.  “Which is why it smells like smoke in here.”

“I wondered,” Lainie said, not unkindly. 

“But, we still got garlic bread.  And red sauce,” Justin added.

“Spaghetti sauce,” Clay chimed.

Justin’s eyes rolled.  “And we managed not to fu… to mess up the salad.”

“Okay.”  Matt heaved a sigh of relief.

“Okay?”  his sons queried in unison.

“Well, there’s no structural damage.  Neither of you are hurt.  And we could probably do with some greens for dinner for a change.  All in all, I’d call this a success.”

Lainie busied herself with setting the table.  “Clay, grab the salad bowl.  Justin, dressings are in the right-hand door of the fridge.  I think we still have croutons left.”

The dinner was, to Clay’s great surprise, a rather reasonable success.  He even asked for seconds.  Perhaps Justin cooking wasn’t such a bad idea, after all…


End file.
